JNXT: Gesture-based NXT Controller
Wednesday, September 6th, 2006
Stefano Sanna has created an application that allows him to control his LEGO Mindstorms NXT from a PDA. Gestures on the PDA’s touchscreen translate into commands sent over bluetooth to his robotic vehicle. See the video.
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Techno-stuff NXT Support Roadmap
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
Pete Sevcik from Techno-stuff was kind enough to send nxtasy.org some information regarding its support roadmap for the LEGO Mindstorms NXT.
The support rollout will occur in three phases:
The first phase is to test current RCX products with the Lego NXT conversion cable (W770323).
The second phase is to modify some of my existing RCX sensors for native attachment to NXT.
The third phase is to develop new products utilizing the enhanced features of NXT.
Phase one is nearly complete and many of my sensors are now supported for attachment to NXT. I am investigating an anomaly in the results of my musical pitch sensor. My current theory is the scaling algorithm that converts RAW into 0-100 is different in the default NXT. This is only a theory and is not proven yet.
Although the RCX has been replaced with a better product there are still a large number in the field. Techno-stuff will continue to release new products for the RCX as long as the market justifies it.
Be sure to check out all the cool Techno-stuff sensors that are now supported for attachment to the NXT. Techno-stuff now also carries the LEGO NXT/RCX conversion cable that can be purchased individually. Thanks for the info, Pete!
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New Website by Bryan Bonahoom
Tuesday, September 5th, 2006
Bryan Bonahoom has created a new website! It’s currently under development, but we can expect lots of good information on NXT, FLL, and more. What will we see next coming out of Bryan’s labs?
Well, Bryan’s W.O.P.R. has sure seen a lot of buzz lately. The BrickFest video of W.O.P.R., featured first on nxtasy.org, has made the headlines on TechEBlog and Slashdot! It is also the 13th most viewed and 46th most linked video in YouTube’s Science & Technology section this week. Congrats, Bryan!
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Next Bytes Code 1.0.1 b7 Available
Monday, September 4th, 2006
John Hansen has released an updated NBC beta. Version 1.0.1 b7 includes “a new symbol table generation feature (-Y) along with a significantly faster preprocessor.” A couple of bugs have been fixed, as well.
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NRLink and PSP-Nx Shipping Soon
Sunday, September 3rd, 2006Our BrickFest coverage included a look at several new products coming to the LEGO Mindstorms NXT from mindsensors.com. Their site has been updated and they are now accepting orders for the NRLink and PSP-Nx. Looks like they’ll both be shipping next week.
The NRLink is an infrared adapter that allows communication between an NXT and RCX.
The PSP-Nx makes it possible to control an NXT from a PlayStation controller.
Posted in hardware, news | 5 Comments »
A HiTechnic compass, RobotC, and 100 lines of code…
Saturday, September 2nd, 2006There’s been a lot of great coverage on HiTechnic’s new compass sensor - the first product offered as the result of the company’s collaboration with the LEGO Group. But since the product has not yet officially hit the store shelves, an NXT-G block is not available from HiTechnic to read the compass bearing. The workaround thus far has been to use the standard NXT-G ultrasonic sensor block to retrieve a single byte (at 0×42) representing half the bearing and multiplying that value by two. Unfortunately, this means that we lose some precision in our measurement.
To see HiTechnic’s compass truly shine, I decided to create a simple test program in RobotC to communicate with it via the I2C protocol and concurrently read the first byte at 0×42 and the odd/even byte at 0×43. The result is the full bearing range from 0-359 degrees.
For every value retrieved at 0×42 (0-179), there is a value of 0 and 1 at 0×43. Thus, for the even byte, the bearing equals the value in 0×42 multiplied by two. For the odd byte, the bearing equals the value in 0×42 multiplied by two then one added to the result. Cool? Cool!
See the source code. The program reads the bearing from the compass and outputs it to the LCD on the intelligent brick. To use in a more sophisticated robotics application, the ReadBearing() function can be dropped right into its source code - provided the ports, addresses, and sensor type are defined. Enjoy!
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